


A Time and Place

by Solrosfalt



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Awkwardness, Canon Compliant, Claude gushes over chemistry at one point so I'm tagging him, F/F, Fluff with some Sad Sprinkles, Hilda makes an appearance too, Marianne with OCD, Post-Canon, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), from Hapi's POV but still, tagging that since I do get into detail about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23261662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solrosfalt/pseuds/Solrosfalt
Summary: Lots of people act strange around Hapi, but none quite as much as Marianne. Hapi tries to roll with it, but this girl is the definition of unpredictable.
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund/Hapi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	A Time and Place

**Author's Note:**

> If you ask me, we were robbed of a canon Hapi/Marianne interaction, but maybe that’s my rarepair-brain talking... Anyway, I just want them to live out their days peacefully in a forest far far away from the rest of the world. And so, here I am yet again with that rarepair stuff. I hope you enjoy the read!

Sundowns were meant for lie-downs. You lock your door so no wolves break in, because that would be a downer. You douse your lights and let the darkness blanket over you. You look at the stars for a few minutes before you bar your windows too, because _again_ , having wolves in your house sucks and you do what you can to prevent it.

And then you sleep. Need it really be more complicated than that? Why’d civilization decide ‘ _hey, let’s conquer the nights too’_? Like that was ever a good idea.

It made sense if you made big valuable things and then realized other people could _take_ your big valuable things. That way you’d have to arrange for guards to stay awake and protect them… but then maybe just don’t make big valuable things? Life would be simpler, right? At least then no one would be dragged out of their comfortable bed and stare at _nothing_ for five hours, like Hapi had been.

And now Hapi sat alone by a breakfast table with her head in her hands.

Night shifts were kind of cool, in a way, because she could watch the stars move over the horizon. Maybe she should have actually done her job and watched the gate or whatever, but there was a time and place for everything.

Night shifts were also the worst, because it messed up her rhythm so bad. Gave her headaches and more dangerously, it made her frustrated.

She’d loved to let that frustration out, but that wasn’t an option. Weird how some people sighed without thinking about the consequences, but then again, breathing wasn’t exactly optional, so in a way, sighing wasn’t either. Hapi had been forced to learn the difference, though. Emotions could be a drag, so of course you’d try to get rid of that emotion (or spread it around, if it’s a happy one) by exhaling it. And next thing you knew, there’d be worse things than wolves in your house. At least if you were like Hapi.

“Ugh,” Hapi muttered to herself. That was her way of cheating, kind of a half-sigh to trick whatever system activated powerful summoning magic from her breath.

She barely had time to look up before a girl sat down in front of her. She had no breakfast plate, she’d just popped down on the chair as though she had no will of her own, her head bent that cast dark shadows beneath her eyes.

“Um,” Hapi said. “Hello?”

The girl bent her head further, hid her face beneath her bangs. She’d attempted to braid it in a crown, and honestly, that hairdo had the potential to look really good on her, if only she’d bothered to put the loose strands under control. Although she looked like she didn’t care about a single thing in the wold, her hair least of all.

“If you’re gonna sit with me, you’ve gotta say hello first,” Hapi informed her with a sceptical look over the rest of the dining hall. There were plenty of joyful tables with room to spare for this girl that wouldn’t put her in mortal peril if someone let out a careless breath.

There was no response.

“Ugh,” Hapi said again, and the girl made a point by lodging her hands on each side of the chair.

Hapi was not in the mood for pranks. She got up and took her plate with her, handing it to the dishers, and walked out into the sunshine. Okay, so breakfast done, without incident. Just another weird interaction. Whatever. Now she could go back to Abyss and go to bed. If there were important stuff for her to do, they had to wake her up. She wasn’t offering anything for free the day after a night shift.

\---

The next day, Hapi lost one of her shoes. And unsurprisingly, Abyss floors were cold. Being underground kind of has that effect. So, Hapi ventured up to the surface to be warmed by the sunlight.

She sat down on a bench outside the greenhouse and glared at her mismatched feet. It was at least nice to not hide away in Abyss all day, to be welcomed up to the surface. Stuff were definitely better now since joining the chatterbox professor, but she would still be mad about the shoe situation.

Not that she got much company up here, especially not now. When Hapi frowned people steered clear of her even more than usual. Her annoyance was a coin hovering over a monstrous slot-machine. Pretty lonely, but Hapi was used to it.

On top of that, it was still pretty early, just before noon, so there weren’t that many people up and running to begin with. But one of the few was the girl from yesterday’s breakfast-table. She seemed to be on her way to the greenhouse, but as she caught sight of Hapi, she stopped.

Her stance was like a statue, frozen in a step. She stared, and Hapi stared back.

“You’ve got a problem?” Hapi asked her with a grumble. “Or do I have goop in my eye?”

The girl didn’t look as though she was breathing. She clenched her fists until her knuckles whitened and hissed out a shallow exhale.

“Okay, seriously,” Hapi said and got to her feet, bending one knee considering the uneven surface beneath her soles. “You’re creeping me out. Either say something or leave!”

“I can’t.” The response was just a slow wail, like an anxious cat. The girl’s lips barely moved. “You… attract monsters.”

For being one of the terrified outsiders, this girl certainly didn’t act like the rest. Seeking the monster-whisperer out was kind of counter-productive if you were scared of monsters, right?

“So?” Hapi grumbled at her. “I’m super-duper dangerous, okay, whatever! _So what_? Did you want something from me?”

The girl drew another shallow breath. She’d grown paler. Whatever rooted her in place wasn’t very kind to her, and Hapi’s annoyance surely didn’t help.

Hapi had seen her fair share of dark magic rituals. She was pretty talented in the arts herself and had acted as the unwilling sacrifice at least six times in the past. Which was upsetting, obviously, but whatever happened before her now looked pretty scary to witness, too.

Hapi’s face softened and she reached out to the girl. “Did someone… put a curse on you, or something?”

“No, don’t touch me!” The girl shrieked and took a step back, her arms raised in defense like Hapi was pestilence herself. Then she looked down on her feet like she’d just realized she’d moved, and she grew even paler.

“Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh, no, no…”

She stopped breathing and stood still as a statue until she couldn’t hold her breath anymore, and keeled forwards.

Okay, something was definitely wrong. Hapi tried to support her with a hand on her arm and looked into her face.

“Hey, I know curses, okay? Nod if you can hear me.”

The girl was shaking now, as though caught in a sudden high fever, and she whimpered again. No nodding. She seemed to want to move as little as possible. Maybe she was in pain? But she’d walked so freely up until the point she’d looked Hapi in the eye… How’d that make sense?

Could be that it wasn’t a curse at all. One of the kids in Abyss was really anxious over most things and one day he’d totally disconnected and cried out in total agony. Everyone around him had thought he was dying. Constance had knelt and tried to puzzle a healing spell together, but then said there’d been nothing she could find to fix. Then Yuri-bird had put a hand on the kid’s shoulder and talked to him until the shaking stopped. No curse involved, just the kid’s own brainpower turned against him. Which sounded worse than a curse, honestly.

Hapi was neither of her friends when it came to being a calming presence, but she was helpful when the need arose. Or at least she tried to be.

“Breathe,” Hapi said. “Just breathe. Don’t faint or whatever. What’s your name?”

“Marianne,” the girl gasped, successfully breathing, at last.

“That’s nice,” Hapi said. “Okay Mari, I get that you can’t tell me what’s going on—”

“—I’m sorry,” Marianne immediately said. “I’m sorry.”

Hapi frowned and patted her on the arm. “Uh, no worries, I guess. Let’s just stay here and wait for help, okay? I’m not gonna go anywhere.”

“No,” Marianne protested.

“No? As in, you want me to go away?”

“Yes… please… don’t come near me, I’m…”

Hapi shifted in her crouched stance. “I don’t take that stuff personally,” she said. “I’ll leave, sure, but only after you’ve got someone to keep an eye on you. If there’s a curse going on you need to go to the infirmary or cathedral or whatever.”

“It’s not a—or I mean, it is, but—” Marianne rested her head on her arm and exhaled slowly. “Please leave me… I’m fine…”

Hapi tried to remember how Yuri-bird had handled the kid, asking all sorts of simple questions like a pro calm-downer. Hapi wasn’t the best at small talk, but hey, she could try her best when she was the only option around at the moment.

“What were you planning to do at the greenhouse?” she asked.

Marianne exhaled again, and the small pebbles beneath her moved under her breath. “Getting… lice-repellent.”

“Oh, huh. For a cat or a dog?”

“…Horse. He said… he was itchy.”

Ignoring the part about a talking horse for the sake of keeping the peace, Hapi only nodded. “Okay, yeah, makes sense. I like horses too. I’m practicing for the Valkyrie exam, so I’m a paladin right now. My horse’s name’s Maxine.”

Marianne didn’t answer to that, and the agony of uncertainty finally passed when someone shrieked from the other side of the pathway.

“Marianne!? Oh my gosh!”

Hapi liked Hilda a lot. Hilda understood the point of taking breaks, for one thing, and she’d been nice to everyone during their adventures in Abyss. One could have expected of her to act like a spoiled noble, but she’d been considerate, fixed some of the leaking pipes and accessorized the girl’s dorm with paper butterflies. Overall a nice person to have around. Especially now, as she darted over to Marianne and basically hoisted her up in her arms.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

Marianne’s head lolled a little, and she groaned.

“She was just walking and then she freaked out when she saw me,” Hapi shrugged at Hilda.

“I’m fine,” Marianne said, hanging like a sack of potatoes in Hilda’s arms. “I need… to get Dorte the herbs—"

“Nu-uh,” Hilda frowned. “Nope, we’re going to your room this instant! I’ll get the herbs to Dorte, no problem! It’s too bad I’m _terrible_ with horses but he’ll have to manage—”

“I can do it,” Hapi said and raised her hand.

“Oh, would you?” Hilda beamed at her, supporting her friend in her arms. “That’s _so_ sweet! Thank you! Doesn’t that sound good, Marianne?”

Marianne looked a little bit less ill, but she still kind of sagged a little. Like she’d given up.

“I promise I’ll get it done,” Hapi assured her, way more dramatic than she usually went, but she felt bad for whatever had transpired here. Kind of like it was her fault.

“Yeah, um, okay…” Marianne said with a quick look at Hapi.

That was the end of that interaction, thankfully. Hilda spun on her heel and Hapi watched them go, still crouching on the stone tiles outside the greenhouse.

Okay, so now for a whole different thing—which herbs worked as lice-repellent? Hapi wasn’t exactly great with the numerous plants in the greenhouse. She’d known the herbs in her forest—some anti-inflammatory ones, some to induce sneezes, some to calm an upset stomach… She remembered _nothing_ about lice.

She shoved her hands in her pockets and walked over to the dining hall, hoping to catch sight of someone who’d want to talk to her and not run away and who _also_ knew stuff about plants. She got to standing in the doorway, watching the stir of lunch-rush people around her, until she finally recognized someone stretching and yawning in the queue for portions of pheasant stir-fry.

It wasn’t often that Hapi sought someone out in the middle of a public space like this, but hey, desperate times and desperate measures and all that.

“Heya, Claudester,” she greeted him.

“You’re missing a shoe,” Claude greeted her back and arched a brow at her.

“Yep,” Hapi said. “I sure am.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Ugh, don’t get me started,” Hapi said, swallowing down the urge to let out a huff. “No reason except that it’s gone forever, I guess. I bet it fell down a drain or something. Anyway, I came to talk to you about plants. You know tons of stuff.”

Claude put his hands behind his head with a small smirk and moved forwards in line. “Maybe I do. What’s it about?”

“Making lice-repellent,” Hapi said, and boy was the sigh close to slipping out. Getting involved with surface-world-stuff was dangerous.

“Oh,” Claude nodded and frowned with a look of concern. “Well…I know toxic mixtures that _attract_ lice, at least.”

“No thank you,” Hapi said and pinched her nose to keep herself from exhaling. “Do you know any books I can look into? I’m doing a favour for this girl Mari. I think she’s in yours and Chatterbox’s house.”

“Marianne?” Claude asked, and his concern immediately got more real. “Wait, she spoke with you? She asked me about you a few days ago, about the rumors that I did not confirm nor deny—I’d hate to be rude, you know.”

“Sure.” Hapi frowned disbelievingly at him.

“No, honestly,” Claude shrugged. “I said if she wanted to know, she should try to get to know you herself. Did she really?”

Hapi wished she could scoff. “She had a funny way to go about it. I’m gonna say… no.”

Claude scratched his chin and nodded tiredly. He got his portion of pheasant stir-fry in his hands and offered another plate to Hapi. She shrugged and took it.

They walked out on the porch together, overlooking the fishing dock and marketplace. Claude didn’t talk at all, just watched the sun on the waves and the people below.

“Thanks for the lunch company, Claudester,” Hapi said as she scraped the last piece of blackberry jelly from the corner of the plate. “So, about those books, do you—?”

“I’m thinking,” Claude answered her, tapping his fork on the plate. “Forget the books. If you put the lice-attracting herbs to dry in the sun before you cook them, that ought to rid them of the oils the little buggers are drawn to and only keep the toxins. Or you could separate the oils through a funnel and add preservatives to the less dense solution and purify the whole thing by neutralizing the acid compounds…”

“That’s a whole lot of big boring words,” Hapi said and leaned her head in her hand.

“It’s _chemistry,_ ” Claude interjected, somewhat indignantly. “It’s far from boring!”

“Okay, okay,” Hapi said and stretched her back. “But just give it to me straight, is it possible?”

“We’ll make sure it is,” Claude said, very seriously. “I’d hate to disappoint Marianne.”

\---

Hapi found her shoe tied to her door, along with a little note of a squiggly deer. That had to be Claude, all right. How he’d found her shoe was a mystery, and she wouldn't ask him, but she wouldn’t complain either. This meant going to the stables was way easier.

She visited Maxine a few hours later than usual today, but she always tried to pop in and say hi at least once every day.

Maxine looked up, ears shot forward, peacefully crunching. Her coat was shiny, as if someone had just brushed her, and she had fresh carrots in her manger.

Hapi knew who the benefactor must be, because further up the aisle was Marianne, humming to herself and brushing the mane of a light brown horse.

“No itch today?” Marianne said to herself. “That’s very good, Dorte. I’m happy to hear it. Yes, Claude’s very nice, and Hapi—oh, you think? No, I couldn’t possibly.”

It was only a matter of time before Marianne would notice her. Hapi’s shoe scraped against some hay and her elbow bounced into a wooden pillar, and that warned Marianne that she wasn’t alone. And just like before, she froze in place the moment she met Hapi’s gaze.

“Hapi,” she gasped. “Uhm… I—”

“I get it,” Hapi nodded. “I’ll leave. Just wanted to say thanks for caring for Maxine.”

“Oh,” Marianne whispered. “Okay… Yeah, no problem.” She bit her lip and looked down on her feet. “…She said she didn’t think you would come to visit her today, so I thought… uhm…”

“Maxine said that?” Once again, Hapi just rolled with it. This girl had some weird ideas, but who’d Hapi be to judge? “I was just a few hours late! What a drama-queen.” She turned around and made a show of putting her hand on Maxine’s back. “Sorry for making you wait, buddy.”

Hapi was actually making an effort to seem non-threatening, but that obviously wasn’t working. Marianne was doing that thing where she held her breath again, and Hapi was a hair away from sighing. She sucked her breath back in and started to cough instead. That, at least, had Marianne moving away from her horse and over to Hapi, leaning forwards uncertainly.

“Are you… okay?”

“Ugh,” Hapi answered. “Yeah, I guess. Sucks that I can’t sigh.”

Marianne folded herself inwards and stepped back again. “I don’t know. I think… I think you can.”

Hapi put her hand on her forehead. “I mean technically I _can_ , but we don’t want monsters to come barging in the monastery, right? It’s the whole reason I was shoved down into Abyss to begin with!”

Marianne drew a shaky breath and looked to the side. “I meant… you can sigh, because… I’m here.”

Hapi didn’t like this topic, like at _all_. No one knew what it was like to be a ticking monster-bomb, and when people took it lightly, things usually got majorly annoying.

“What," Hapi snapped. “Are you gonna _talk_ to the monsters and tell them to leave?”

“N-no,” Marianne winced, clearly a bit hurt. “It’s just that I’m already… I’m… I’m sorry.”

She tore herself away from the pillar and disappeared out into the sun, quick as a weasel. Hapi looked after her and rubbed her eye.

Okay, maybe that had been rude. Marianne was weird, sure, but Hapi would make sure to apologize the next time they ran into each other.

\---

The next day was a pretty good day. Hapi ate her favorite food and walked up to the surface and dipped her toes into the waters in the fishing dock, humming to herself. Maybe she’d get to follow professor Chatterbox to a mission at the end of the month, which didn’t sound so bad. Ashen Wolves and Golden Deers, joined together to kill some church-people. Typical church values to be killing one another left and right over pointless things. And sure, Hapi was right in the middle of it too, but not because she wanted to do any favors for the Goddess. She just liked having something to do every now and again.

Her life was much nicer now that she could go up to the surface whenever she pleased. She’d even go so far to call it peaceful, despite the quarrels going on in the rest of the world. Thing was, whenever she left Abyss, Marianne always found her somehow. It wasn’t a drawback, but it was clear that the girl wasn’t fond of Hapi. Nothing uncommon, but still—she always popped up like clockwork, ever since that day in the dining hall.

When Marianne’s shadow appeared in the water, Hapi got to her feet. She’d promised herself to apologize, and so she should.

Marianne jerked backwards a bit at her sudden movement. “Oh—”

“Hi,” Hapi said. “I’m sorry. You know, about yesterday.”

Marianne blinked at her. “W-what?”

“I mean, I commented on your talking-to-animals-schtick. Kinda rude. I’ve got my thing, you can have yours.”

”Okay…?” Marianne said, frowning.

That was that. Not so bad. That was all the conversation they needed to do, but Hapi really wanted to get to the bottom of everything Marianne too, if she could.

”So like… Can you _actually_ speak with animals?”

Marianne sighed. It must feel nice to do so. “Yes…”

“Cool talent. Mine sucks.”

Marianne grasped her own arm, hugging herself. Was she gonna hold her breath again?

Hapi put up her hands. “Let’s lay it out, okay? You’ve been weird around me since that day in the dining hall, so let me ask—what _is_ your deal?”

“Well, uhm, since you can control beasts… I…”

Hapi waited for her to continue. She didn’t.

“Okay, so, you’ve got some stuff wrong,” Hapi said and tapped her chin with an annoyed frown. “I _wish_ I could control them. That’s kind of the issue—I have zero power over those guys. They just pop up and ruin my life.”

“Oh.” Marianne's expression changed drastically, from remorse to outright confusion.

And once again, Hapi waited for her to continue, and once again, Marianne didn't say another word.

"Well," Hapi said and put a hand on her hip. “Did you come over because you wanted something?”

“Want something…? No, I just… Uhm, excuse me.”

With that, Marianne left. Hapi was once again alone on the docks, and none the wiser. Maybe it’d be better if she just stayed down in Abyss.

\---

The two avoided each other awkwardly for a whole school year, and Marianne was so close to graduating when the Empire declared war out of nowhere. The monastery got taken over, Chatterbox disappeared and/or died, and the Kingdom got invaded…

Hapi still hung around Claudester in the Alliance. She wasn’t like his closest soldier or anything (that wouldn’t fit her at all), but she was around for the entire war. Marianne was too, but it wasn’t like Hapi saw her often. She was over in Edmund most of the time, while Hapi hung around the outskirts of Deirdru. It wasn’t until Chatterbox returned from the dead that stuff got real.

The monastery was just theirs for the taking, and obviously, Hapi was immediately down in Abyss to see if anything had survived. Surprisingly much of it was fine, but that wasn’t what drove a reaction out of her.

Marianne was down there too, smiling and speaking to a pair of children (was that Greta and Ludvig? They’d gotten really big!). She had a halo of healing magic around her as she stitched together a sore on Greta’s elbow. Ludvig held a tabby cat and giggled at something Marianne had said, and Hapi just looked on in complete confusion.

Okay, so Marianne knew how to get down into Abyss, big deal, most surface-dwellers did at this point. _Why_ was she there, though? And why did she seem so... different?

“Hapi!” Greta exclaimed when she spotted her, and Hapi gave her a little wave.

“I love what you’ve done to your hair!” Ludvig said. Figures that he'd notice that. He'd always dreamed of being a stylist.

Marianne turned around. Her face no longer had spots of shadow, her hair was in order and her dress a reasonable amount of wrinkly.

Hapi waved uncertainly at her too. Marianne got to her feet and smiled wider.

“Hapi,” she greeted her. “How nice that you are well!”

“Yeah, uh… same,” Hapi said awkwardly. Should she leave, like old times? Marianne didn’t look like she despised the air Hapi breathed, so maybe they could have a conversation for once. “What are you doing in Abyss?”

“I heard we needed some healing done,” Marianne answered and clasped her hands and rested them on her belly. “And Claude wanted us to look around in the _entire_ monastery, so…”

“Yeah,” Hapi nodded. “I kind of thought he meant for us former Ashen Wolves to do comb through Abyss, though.”

“Oh,” Marianne said and she paled a little, yep, like old times. “I’m sorry…”

“No, don’t apologize,” Hapi said and raised her hands. “It’s nice of you, really. Not a lot of folks that care for this place.”

Marianne nodded and relaxed. “So, uhm… How’s Maxine?”

Hapi chuckled. “Oh, she’s fine. I think. I mean, I can’t exactly ask her, but she hasn’t bit me, so I think she likes me fine. How’s Dorte?”

Marianne beamed, probably at the fact that Hapi had remembered his name. “He’s very good! He talks about you sometimes!”

There was something so weird to have been a conversation topic chosen by a horse, but on the other hand, Marianne spoke of it like it was perfectly normal. So perhaps it was.

Hapi merely nodded. Hapi had nothing more to talk to her about, she only cleared her throat. “So, shall we look around Abyss together, since we’re both here?”

Had she asked five years ago, who knows what could have happened. Now though, Marianne simply smiled.

“Absolutely.”

\---

Marianne kept Hapi company in the monastery even now, five years later, but she was much less weird about it. They ate together with Hilda and Raphael and the old Ashen Wolves, kept the stables orderly together with Constance and Lorenz, and when they were out on missions the two of them kept the same pace. Marianne was a Holy Knight, which was kind of a big deal in the church, not that Hapi cared about _that_ , but she was on horseback and kept by Hapi’s side. It was nice to have her around like that.

“So you mean you grew up in the middle of an untouched forest?” Marianne asked her as they made their way toward the bridge of Myrddin.

“It isn’t untouched considering there’s a village in the middle of it,” Hapi shrugged.

“But… it’s just that and the wilderness?”

“Yep,” Hapi said and stretched. “No politics and war and stuff.”

“Sounds nice.”

“I guess so…”

“Do you miss it?”

“I mean, kinda?” Hapi pinched her nose to keep the sigh in. “I wasn’t unhappy with the place, just… Bored. I wanted to see the rest of the world too. Guess I didn’t know how good life was back there. I was just nine. I didn’t know about my crest, didn’t know that people locked other people in cages out here.”

Marianne nodded sombrely. “This life is a lot like a cage, yes…”

“I wasn’t talking metaphorically,” Hapi said angrily. “I meant a literal cage! I’ve had at least twelve curses put on me, okay?”

Hapi usually didn’t get angry, just annoyed. Marianne reined back.

“I-I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I didn’t—"

Hapi bit her tongue. It was pretty low to snap at people at random, which was why she didn’t do that very often… But she also wanted people to understand just how much her life had sucked, and sometimes that boiled over.

They rode on in silence for a while. Then Marianne looked up at Hapi again.

“…Was it because of your crest?”

Hapi shrugged, even though the answer was yes. “Sort of. It’s because of all of those curses that I have this unintentional summoning-thing. I don’t get how worked up some people get over crests, they’re such a nuisance!”

Marianne nodded, her eyes on the ground. “I hate crests too,” she said. “Especially mine.”

That was news to Hapi. But it made sense, she supposed. A lot of noble kids at the monastery had a crest, after all.

“Is your crest why you can understand animals?”

“Yes,” Marianne said, and sighed. “It is… very rare.”

“Okay,” Hapi answered unsurely—Marianne was clearly uncomfortable. “Well, do you… Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“All right.” Hapi scratched her hair. “That’s fair. I guess that’s enough talking, anyway. Let’s just look at the view for a bit, okay?”

Marianne smiled again, and their silence was once again comfortable.

\---

The war went on. Hapi just kind of rolled with it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have those she considered friends. The Golden Deer and the Ashen Wolves were an inseparable team. Hapi liked them all, and funnily enough, she liked Marianne the most. She’d never expected that five years ago.

Or, well, it was this specific moment when something stirred, like a wildcat in the bushes of her mind. Weirdly poetic, but that was the only way for Hapi to make sense of it.

It was a misty evening and their little army had been pulled out to prepare to fight a terrorizing beast in the woods of Edmund territory. That was all Hapi knew about it, but there were tons more to the story, apparently.

Once they reached the depth of the forest, they found the Beast with capital B. This beast spoke with real human words. It was rare but it happened. No biggie. He also looked right at Marianne with sorrow and bloodthirst, and that _was_ a biggie.

“You...” The Beast’s voice rumbled through the ground. “…Do you bear our Crest? For what purpose did you come here?”

“Our crest,” Marianne repeated. “Do you mean…?”

Howls echoed over the forest trees, melded with angry snarls from all kinds of beasts. The Beast before them dug its claws down into the earth, and the sadness that hovered over it was completely taken over by the bloodthirst.

Maybe it was because Hapi was there. Monsters wanted to kill her so badly. Too bad for them, because she knew where to hit them where it hurt.

“No matter,” the Beast continued. “You’ve entered this den of beasts… You will not make it out alive.”

That was all the talking the Beast was ready to do, clearly. It lunged, and their little company scattered to dogde him. Claude barked orders from his wyvern, and everyone split up to take care of the beasts coming from all directions. Marianne, however, did not shift focus, and neither did Hapi.

“Oh inheritor of my crest,” the Beast drooled, completely out of control. “Nothing will stop me… from feasting on your flesh and blood! Nothing will stop me from devouring every human you have brought me!”

“No,” Marianne said, wielding a lance that sparkled with blessed mythril. “I won’t let you!”

That was the moment. The stir in the bushes, the realization. Hapi looked at Marianne and saw courage, and light, and _life_. Stuff that she usually shied away from because all those things meant you had to care about things, and life was just much easier if you just passively let things happen. But here, Marianne took action, and she was… well. She was stunning. Absolutely radiant.

There was a time and place for everything. Falling in love right in the middle of a beast-ridden forest was not a very good time _or_ place, so Hapi tried to push it aside.

Hapi would break this monster’s armor. She knew exactly how to. And she’d make sure to get Marianne out of there alive, so she could finish falling in love properly.

\---

The sword that the beast had left behind as it decayed pulsated in Marianne’s hand. Hero’s relics were such creepy things, but Marianne managed to look cool with it for the brief period she actually held it. Then as soon as she got home, she shoved it into a box and hid it under her bed, all while Hapi looked on with her arms crossed.

This wasn’t the first time Hapi been invited over to Marianne’s room, but it was the first time she felt slightly weird about it.

“You want me to get some tea from the dining hall?” Hapi asked, because that was something they both had discovered they kind of enjoyed.

Now though, Marianne looked at her with a small frown.

“I’m okay without,” she said. “I just wanted your company.”

Hapi nodded and rubbed the back of her head. “Sure, sure, yay for company.” She stood awkwardly for a few more moments, trying to think of something to say. Marianne still had a bit of beast-blood on her neck.

“So, uh…” Hapi begun. “That big bad beast was your… Great-great-great- _great_ -grandpa or something?”

“Yes.” Marianne sat down on the bed and sighed. “My crest… Maurice’s Crest… It has been a symbol of disaster. It is said that anyone who comes in contact with it is met with great misfortune.”

“Huh,” Hapi said.

“It was my curse,” Marianne said as she stared holes into the floorboards. “From a very young age, I thought I was a monster. Maurice’s crest is also referred to… as the Crest of the Beast.”

Hapi sat down on Marianne’s desk chair. She wasn’t really sure what to say to that. Sure, it made sense if the first person with that crest got himself transformed into a beast and killed people for a thousand years, but that could happen to anyone who wielded a Hero’s Relic. It got nothing to do with Marianne, specifically… right?

“Hapi…” Marianne rested her hands in her lap and looked to the side, to drill holes in the walls instead. “…I’m very sorry for the way I acted around you when we were younger. I’ve always been…” Marianne drew a deep breath through her nose. “…I’ve always been at the mercy of my thoughts. I had these rituals all figured out to try to protect people from my curse, and then I heard about you—and I thought that since I… since I was a beast, I’d have to be at your mercy, too.”

Hapi looked into her face. So much made sense, now. Marianne weirdly following her and insisting Hapi should be able to sigh when she was around, her wanting Hapi to leave her alone…

“Yikes,” Hapi said, albeit an anticlimactic word-choice, it was the only thing she could think of. “No wonder you wanted me to stay out of your way. I’m sorry for causing you that, Mari.”

“It was not your fault,” Marianne smiled, and her eyes darted to hers for a second. “It was my mind conjuring up these rules around you… and the more you disproved or disrupted those rules, the more it stressed me—but it was no fault of yours. The only one to blame is that part of my mind. That was what made me suffer.”

Hapi leaned forward and rested her head in her hand, feigning casualty to try and make this less uncomfortable for Marianne. “The way you’re talking, it sounds like that part of your mind doesn’t exist anymore?”

“Oh, no, it does,” Marianne said and closed her eyes. “But now… Because of all of my friends, and because of my own work, I know those thoughts aren’t gospel. I can manage without wishing harm upon myself. I’m sorry I kept this a secret.”

“No problem,” Hapi immediately answered. “I mean, it’s gotta be tough to talk about it. I’m just glad you’re managing without fainting in front of me.”

“Me too,” Marianne chuckled, but there was some sadness hidden within it. “And now… when we defeated Maurice… and finally let him rest… I feel human again.”

Hapi caught her hands in hers. It surprised them both, probably.

“You _are_ human,” Hapi said, and she could tell by the way her words sounded just how much she _cared_ right now. It was weird to do so for the first time in so, so long.

“Thank you,” Marianne smiled. “I’m glad you’re my friend, Hapi.”

“Hey, you know me,” Hapi said, flustered. “I’m always up for, uhm, friend-stuff.”

It was when she looked into Marianne’s deep brown eyes, in the calm of her room in the middle of the night and still with beast-blood on her shoes, that Hapi fell in love for real. There was a time and place for everything, and that was it.

\---

Marianne shielded her eyes. “So the road just disappears?”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” Hapi grinned.

They stood by the edge of the forest Hapi once had called home. It was lush and green, and birds tweeted from every branch in a choir of marking territories. Just the way she’d left it. The war had not touched this place.

“Then how do you know the way?” Marianne asked, her cheeks puffy from the effort of carrying her backpack while Dorte walked behind her carrying the rest of the load.

“You just walk and hope for the best, I guess. That’s how I found my way _out_ , anyway. But it took a day or two. And now that we have two horses with us, it’s probably gonna take longer.”

“That won’t do,” Marianne sighed. Then she put her hand to one of the trees and looked up at one of the small forest birds up in its branches. “Hello, could you tell us the way to where the humans live in this forest?”

The bird kept tweeting the same way as before, but Marianne nodded. “Okay, thank you very much.”

Then she pulled out a handful of seeds and spread it out on the ground. The bird hopped down and tweeted angrily at other birds who tried to take a share of his reward.

“He says we should keep going north and then ask someone else,” Marianne said with a look on Hapi.

“That wasn’t very helpful.”

“He did his best.”

Hapi chuckled. Then, as it was time to start walking again, she hesitated. “Hey, Mari, are you sure you wanna tag along for this? And all this talk about building our home in there… I dunno, I just want you to be sure.”

“We don’t have to lock ourselves out from the outside world completely,” Marianne smiled at her. “We can still visit our friends.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that logic,” Hapi smiled back.

“Then again,” Marianne said with a mischievous gleam in her eye, “if children start to get into the picture, we’d be rooted for a while. But I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

“Heh,” Hapi chuckled. “Imagine me as a mom…”

“I am,” Marianne said and tilted her head a little. “And you’re doing a fantastic job.”

“Mari,” Hapi said with a blush over her cheeks. “Let’s see if we actually _like_ living here first before we make family plans, yeah?”

Marianne basically sparkled with laughter. She seemed so happy, like she’d never been ever before when Hapi had seen her. Some people might get intimidated by the thought of spending their lives in the depth of the wilderness, but clearly not Marianne. When they began their walk Marianne watched the trees and the bushes and birds, and she didn’t care at all that her dress got ripped from walking outside the path.

They just kept on going. Hapi picked some wild berries for them to eat, Marianne found pears, and they ate some of their bread and let the horses graze in peace. It was crowded between the wild foresty growth, sure, but it was also cozy and slow and just the way life was meant to be.

They kept it up for three days. Marianne politely asked foxes and bunnies and birds for the way, and eventually, they found themselves at the edge of a clearing.

The houses were made of fresh wood, and the roofs were renovated recently. Children played tag between the small chicken coops, and adults sat out on the benches, knitting and talking and laughing.

Hapi stood frozen at the edge of it all and tried to take it all in. She wasn’t sure she dared to go in there and deal with all the feelings… One of the ones knitting on the bench seemed so… familiar. Red hair in a tousle, and brown, sun-kissed skin with scars from numerous encounters with thorny bushes. 

Hapi was almost crying already, but she didn’t want to turn back. She’d seen enough of the outside world. Now she wanted nothing more than to settle down where there was no talk of monsters and goddesses, where she could rest her head onto someone’s shoulder and know that she would be okay.

Yeah, she’d be okay.

She took Marianne’s hand, and together, they walked into the clearing. Past and future merged as Hapi was embraced by her mother for the first time in a decade, and Hapi wasn’t embarrassed to admit she cried more than a little. Marianne was right behind her the entire time, shining like a little sun. The village moved like a soft, patient swarm of greetings, while the sun filtered through the greens and browns that covered the sky.

Hapi wasn’t a stranger like she’d feared. She belonged, and so did Marianne. They breathed the same fresh air, surrounded by the same rustle of branches, and there would be no more troubles in their lives.

This was it. They were home.


End file.
